While not written for genealogy, Mapstr is a useful tool for that purpose. “Mapstr lets you keep track of all your favourite places around the world, tag them, and find them on your very own map!” See the Mapstr site for more details – it is available for IOS and Android and is free at this time.

What I have done is to enter the addresses of my ancestors from the 1939 Register into Mapr. Unfortunately, not all of the address are available on modern maps – wouldn’t it be great if there was a version using the 1939 maps? – but enough addresses are found to make it useful.

Adding an address is done by tapping on the + at the bottom centre of the screen and then selecting search. Above is a screen shot showing the five addresses I have already added.

You can zoom in on the maps. Here is a screen shot showing the residences of my Grandmother and Great Grandfather.

You can also view one address and see them name you gave that location, the modern address and any tag you attached to the entry – Grandmother in this case.

And there is a list view that sorts the records you have added alphabetically. Here you can see I have used different tags for each person. While this view shows satellite images, the map page does not give this option.

You can add as many tags as you like and then filter by those tags, so it would be possible to view different lists for your maternal and paternal lines, or grandparents only, or cousins etc.

On IOS Mapstr links to Apple Maps for directions.

A great tool that can be repurposed nicely repurposed for genealogy. Now only if I was closer and go visit all of the locations I will be adding into the app.

Early modern historian. Loves gender, women's, social & royal histories. Ventures elswhere when interest is piqued. Blog may cover above themes or something a little more random. Find me on Twitter @ruthrblair